Each voyage requires a beginning, a departure, a launch.

And yet, just as it is with many well-told tales, personal adventures sometimes begin with a prologue … a notable twist early in life's narrative that tilts the head toward an unexpected horizon. The beginning of the proverbial long journey, in other words, can far precede its first actual step.

As I write this, I am sitting aisle-side on an airplane, bound for Italy. And this journey, as you might now imagine, is rooted in events that stretch back long before booking my flights.

Nearly four decades ago, just as Nixon and the nation seemed endlessly embroiled in Watergate and Skylab (the ISS’s predecessor) began its six-year stint as America’s first orbital hotel, I (with decidedly less notice in the headlines) began my college career.

I did so with every jot and tittle of disorientation that define freshmen everywhere. But that very novelty helped to cement in my memory the September morning when I walked into my very first college class: "Western Civilization II: The Renaissance to The Enlightenment."

A bit of background is necessary: I attended high school in Tennessee, and in those days, Tennessee’s public schools were abysmal. Compared to the rigor that my 21st-century high-school-aged clients describe, my own college-prep classes were misnamed.

So ill-prepared was I that my freshman knowledge of European history would hardly have filled an index card. I had heard the word “Renaissance,” but that was about as far as my education had carried me.

So when my 18-year-old noggin began to suck up the Renaissance (so to speak), I was agog. It was hard to fathom that for almost a millennium Western Christendom had largely abandoned (and in many cases, genuinely forgotten) many of the gains made the Greeks and Romans.

(Admittedly, the Greeks and Romans had often pilfered these gains via military conquest. But still, once you inherit an intellectual diamond, even if it was stolen booty, it seems ludicrous to toss it out like month-old moldy manicotti.)

But late in the 14th century, beginning in Italy, Europe awoke from what was almost a thousand-year cultural coma. And 500 years later, in “Western Civilization II,” I awoke from my own. Just as the Europeans learned to celebrate knowledge, skill, and human achievement, in my freshman history class, I began to do the same thing.

Now, naturally the Renaissance spread throughout most of Europe. But there seems little doubt that the rebirth of valuing human curiosity and achievement began in Italy. And it is there where I'm bound.

This journey is structured around two Italian cities: Venice & Florence. Western culture changed course here, and I want to see some of the footprints that remain within these luscious old cities.

I plan to record the experience of my demi-pilgrimage. If you think you may enjoy the topic, check back over the coming days. I promise that it won’t just be dry history. After all, when I land, I’ll be treading through one of the most water-logged cities on the planet. Be on the lookout here for some views of the canals of Venice.

Blog to you later!